Hudak tried to rally his troops with a special caucus meeting held at MaRS amid controversy and internal dissent over his U.S.-style proposal to undermine the power of unions in the workplace.

“There are 50 different countries that have modernized their labour laws that are taking jobs away from Ontario,” he said, repeatedly refusing to say whether he would kill the Rand Formula, which requires people working in a unionized shop to pay dues whether they join or not, though he blasted “union elites.”

Delegates to a Conservative convention last September narrowly approved a party motion to scrap the formula and since then it has caused dissension in the ranks of Tory MPPs, candidates, and activists.

Some party stalwarts are concerned the anti-union policy will galvanize opposition against them because it can be easily misrepresented as leading to lower wages and poorer working conditions as has happened in many American states.

But Hudak insisted companies that were once “busting down the door” to move to Ontario would return here if he is elected and implements labour and tax reforms.

In a partisan event in Port Hope, Wynne warned “Tim Hudak’s plan for Ontario is risky and reckless.”

“The Conservatives want to take us to a place that would slash services, slash jobs, and would drive us to the bottom,” the premier told reporters there after a morning stop at the unionized General Motors Canada plant in Oshawa.

“He . . . wants to drag down wages with his anti-labour scheme,” she said of Hudak, before taking a swipe at NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, whose party has propped up the minority Liberals for the past two years.

“The NDP offer few ideas, and when they do, they are anti-business. We can’t afford the NDP right now. The NDP, you don’t know where they stand.”

New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson (Timmins—James Bay) said Wynne was on “a nakedly partisan campaign-style tour” while many in Ontario are still suffering from an economy yet to fully recover after the recession.

“The Liberals may as well be shouting into a megaphone that they are more interested in their own jobs than jobs for hardworking families,” said Bisson.

Wynne’s tour, which is paid for by the Ontario Liberal Party, comes as the latest Forum Research polls forecast trouble for the Grits in next Thursday’s byelections.

Forum found the NDP with a slight lead over the Conservatives in Niagara Falls, which had been represented by the Liberals, and the Tories ahead of the Grits in PC-held Thornhill by a healthy margin.

She will be campaigning in Niagara Falls on Saturday and at a rally at Concord’s Riviera Convention Centre in the riding of Thornhill on Sunday night.

Her tour also takes her to Mississauga, Burlington, Stoney Creek, Kitchener-Waterloo, Milton, Newmarket, Barrie, and Gwillimbury.

The Liberals are using the trip as a trial run for an election that could come in May or June if their spring budget is defeated.

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